Eidolon
Eidolon was the second story arc in a series of James Bond comics by Dynamite Comics. It was published in six issues in 2016, and comprised of issues seven to twelve of the main Dynamite Comics series. Plot Issue 7 After an accountant left some traceable elements in a transaction report, Beckett Hawkwood murders his accountant while Sir Stephen Mackmain, the head of MI5 appeals to the undersecretary of state to join his cause in the re-examination of the "Hard Rule", a policy put in place to prevent MI6 operatives from carrying firearms inside the country. Elsewhere, James Bond arrives at Los Angeles International Airport in preparation to extract an accountant from the Turkish Embassy. Felix Leiter, on behalf of the CIA, met him there to equip him with a gun and other supplies to keep the extraction quiet. After a two hour drive to the Consulate, Bond finds Cadence Birdwhistle and informs her that her covert position has been compromised. She is dubious until a kill team appear using CIA issue Glock 9s with false Turkish Consulate ID cards. Birdwhistle then informs Bond of her work at the Consulate. As a forensic accountant, she had discovered a series of transactions from MIT in Turkey to Britain using the code name "Eidolon". Bond contacts Bill Tanner and is cleared to return to England, but due to a bomb threat, the airport was closed, leaving Bond and Birdwhistle trapped in Los Angeles. Issue 8 They check into the Shimmer Hotel, an MI6 safe-house in LA, and stay the night until the bomb threat is cleared. At the airport, are attacked by two CIA agents, that Felix insists were not sent by the CIA. Bond having killed them, they fly safely to London, where they are attacked by masked gunmen. Fortunately, James had asked for "Targe Protocol", which saw to it they were given a heavily armored car: the Mercedes S 600 Guard. Bond reports the happenings of his journey to M and Bill Tanner, with whom they deduced that the Turkish MIT agents and the CIA agents acting off task simply to get to Birdwhistle for discovering illegal transactions through shell companies, many with the name "Eidolon", a synonym for ghost or spectre, meant that SPECTRE had returned and had infiltrated the security organizations. Due to the "Hard Rule", no MI6 operative could carry a weapon inside the United Kingdom, which necessitated delivering Birdwhistle to an MI5 operative, which would be risky due to the fear of SPECTRE. At that point, and MI5 officer demanded to see M. Issue 9 Senior MI5 field officer Eve Sharma, informed M that an assault on an MI6 officer on English soil made the offense an MI5 case, and she demanded to take it over. Bond subtly pointed out to her that the gunmen at the airport had used MI5 weapon kits, and M stayed adamant that they would handle the case. Sharma left, but insisted that they needed her help and that Stephen Mackmain himself was against her going to see them. Elsewhere in the Vauxhall Cross building, Birdwhistle had encountered a snag in her money chain, and Tanner called in an I Branch specialist, who concluded that it was MI5 security codes, that they had cracked long ago. With her new information, Birdwhistle was able to discover that Eidolon funds were being transferred through MI5 to The Strategic Reserve, an MI5 run Box Tunnel records, computers, and a fleet of underground steam engines in case of a nuclear attack on Britain. M had believed the Box Tunnel to be abandoned and sealed, and sent 007 to investigate. M ordered him to go against the Hard Rule and to draw arms from Q Branch as part of a deniable operation. Q gave Bond a Smith and Wesson Model 500, and a Colt .45 as a sidearm. Bond infiltrates the tunnel and discovers boxes of automatic rifles. He then sees Beckett Hawkwood justifying to a henchman why he will not receive an equal cut of the booty, justifying that he and a Mr. Cullen were Eidolon, and he was simply a worker. As he turned away he discovered Bond, and Hawkwood offered a bonus for whoever brought back the corpse. Hawkfield then threw a flare into the room to light it, and began tossing grenades, which took out one of his men, and mortally wounded Cullen. Issue 10 Bond shoots the last remaining henchman and finds Cullen and takes him back to London, where he and Bill Tanner torture him with boxcutters. Afterward, they report to M that Eidolon is a series of SPECTRE failsafes, comprised of caches of resources paired with four man cells hiding in various Security organizations such as MIT and the CIA, waiting until an armed attack could be mounted. Among the list of confirmed MI5 Eidolon members was Gareth Cullen and Beckett Hawkwood, whom M recognized as a war hero, but those were the only two that Cullen admitted to before requiring a medic. M used the information about Eidolon to defuse the international tensions, and Bond went for a drink. At the bar he was approached by Eve Sharma, who told him she was convinced of a rouge team inside of MI5, that she had been trying to track down for a year, and admitted that she needed MI6's help to get to the bottom of it. Elsewhere, Hawkwood converses with an unknown element of the Eidolon team and they agree to take out their opposition the following day. M then receives a summons, along with Mackmain to discuss the Hard Rule with the Intelligence Services Commissioner. There, M and Birdwhistle presented their case and their findings, with Mackmain providing verbal backlash on each aspect. The security guard in the room then shoots the commissioner in the head, and Miss Moneypenny shoots him, before Mackmain pulls a gun on her, as she points hers at him. M then quips that they have found the remaining two Eidolon members, and Mackmain confirms their suspicions of Eidolon being a stockpile of money and resources for a SPECTRE re-emergence. Hawkwood then walks in to inform them that his team had secured the building. Issue 11 When Hawkwood berates M for not bringing more security, he enters a flashback in which immediately after Hawkwood's team took out the guards, and Hawkwood entered the building, Sharma, whom Bond had informed of the situation, and who had come along for the operation, took them out, and burst into the room. She fired on Hawkwood, and missed, Mackmain then attempted to assassinate M, but Bond discreetly shot him in his spine. Hawkwood escaped through a window. Bond then shot the downed Mackmain in the head, and he and Sharma went after Hawkwood. Sharma was hit with Hawkwood's car, and Bond had to pursue him alone. James followed the car Hawkwood had stolen, which had an MI6 tracker installed, and pursued him in his Bentley. Unfortunately, Bond crashed his car in the chase, and had to be picked up later by M in an Aston Martin DB5. Elsewhere, Hawkwood was picking up the "Crown Court", a volumetric vacuum bomb that he had called his mercenaries to prepare during the chase. Issue 12 While walking through London, Birdwhistle sees Hawkwood on the phone and quickly informs Bond. Bond was stuck in traffic nearby, but had two operatives that were stationed in the area go after Hawkwood. He killed them both and chased down Birdwhistle, who stabbed him in the neck with an uncapped pen, buying her enough time to escape. Hawkwood filled the wound with super glue, and on seeing tightened security at the parliament building, informed his mercenaries that the plan had changed and killed them when they complained. Seeing this, Bond began to pursue Hawkwood's truck upon seeing the bomb inside. On deducing that he planned to obliterate the MI6 building, Bond rammed the truck's cab into a building and engaged Hawkwood in hand-to-hand combat. Hawkwood bests Bond and tries to run away, but is at a dead end. Bond stabs him, and he reveals that He simply wanted to be paid, as duty and honor and idealism meant nothing to him after his accident. Bond then gave him an ultimatum: he could live to be taken into police custody in a few minutes time and live as a terrorist and criminal, or die and the police would only know what Bond told them, which he said would be a tale of him being a hero. Bond then handed Hawkwood his knife, and before he slit his own throat he told Bond to tell MI5 that they "should have treated him right", to which Bond replies "No". Characters James Bond by Jason Masters.PNG|James Bond|link=James Bond (Literary) Cadence Birdwhistle - Profile.png|Cadence Birdwhistle|link=Cadence Birdwhistle Beckett Hawkwood - Profile.png|Beckett Hawkwood|link=Beckett Hawkwood Eve Sharma - Profile.png|Eve Sharma|link=Eve Sharma Stephen McMain - Profile - 2.png|Sir Stephen Mackmain|link=Sir Stephen Mackmain M by Jason Masters.PNG|M |link=M (Literary) Moneypenny by Jason Masters.PNG|Miss Moneypenny|link=Miss Moneypenny (Literary) Felix Leiter by Warren Masters - Profile.png|Felix Leiter|link=Felix Leiter (Literary) Bill Tanner by Jason Masters.PNG|Bill Tanner|link=Bill Tanner (Literary) Q by Jason Masters.PNG|Q|link=Q (Literary) Gallery Eidolon Omnibus.jpg|The U.S. Omnibus cover Eidolon 7.jpg|The seventh issue Eidolon 8.jpg|The eighth issue Eidolon 9.jpg|The ninth issue Eidolon 10.jpg|The tenth issue Eidolon 11.jpg|The eleventh issue Eidolon 12.jpg|The twelfth issue Trivia *Early copies of Issue 8 were misprinted with the issue number 7. Category:James Bond comics